The session was interrupted. It was impossible to deliberate theoretically the question of the means of reconstructing the government among the echoes of the fighting and shooting under the walls of the Winter Palace, where the fate of that very government was being decided in a practical way. The taking of the Palace, however, was rather slow, and this caused hesitation among the less determined elements of the convention. The orators of the right wing prophesied our near destruction. All anxiously awaited news from the arena of the Palace. Presently Antonoff appeared, who directed the operations against the Palace. A death-like silence fell upon the hall. The Winter Palace was taken; Kerensky had fled; other ministers had been arrested and consigned to the fortress of Petropavlovsk. The first chapter of the October revolution was over. The Right Revolutionists and the Mensheviki, altogether sixty men, that is, about one-tenth of the convention, left the session in protest. As there was nothing else left to' them, they "placed the entire responsibility" for the coming events upon the Bolsheviki and Left S. R.'s. The latter were passing through moments of indecision. The past tied them strongly to the party of Chernoff. The right wing of this party swerved to the middle and petty bourgeois elements, to the intellectuals of the middle classes, to the well-to-do elements of the villages; and on all decisive questions went hand in hand with the liberal bourgeoisie against us. The more revolutionary elements of the party, reflecting the radicalism of the social demands of the poorest masses of the peasantry, gravitated to the proletariat and their party. They feared, however, to sever the umbilical cord which linked them to their old party. When we left the Preliminary Parliament, they refused to follow us and warned us against "adventurers," but the insurrection put before them the dilemma of taking sides for or against the Soviets. Not without hesitation, they assembled on our side of the barricades. THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET OF THE PEOPLE'S COMMISSARIES The victory in Petrograd was complete. The power went over entirely to the Military Revolutionary Committee. We issued our first decree, abolishing the death penalty and ordering reelections in the army committees, etc. But here we discovered that we were cut off from the provinces. The higher authorities of the railroads, post office and telegraph were against us. The army committees, the municipalities, the zemstvos continued to bombard the Smolny with threatening telegrams in which they declared outright war upon us and promised to sweep the insurgents out within a short time. Our telegrams, decrees and explanations did not reach the provinces, for the Petrograd Telegraph Agency refused to serve us. In this atmosphere, created by the isolation of the capital from the rest of the country, alarming and monstrous rumors easily sprang up and gained popularity.